Civil Engineering

Using glass powder to manufacture eco-friendly self-consolidating concrete (SCC) has been developed and improved in recent years. While researchers have determined the effect of glass powder on rheological properties of the green concretes, the sensitivity of SCC to this powder content yet remains to be investigated. This study introduced the concepts of insensitive design, and subsequently, the ranges of water to powder ratio, sodium lignosulfonate plasticizer (LS), and glass powder were determined and optimized by the artificial neural network and particle swarm optimization, respectively. The results showed the possibility of producing SCC with the least possible sensitivity to water, glass powder, and plasticizer variations. The best water to cement ratio to design an insensitive SCC derived between 0.33 and 0.34, but the reduction in the compressive strength was inevitable for the augmented water-to-cement ratio. The effect of glass powder on alkali-silica reactions (ASR) and compressive strength was also investigated to clear the way for the incorporation of glass powder in SCC. The results indicated that the ASR reduced to 52% by substituting 30% glass powder.